The Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (ASNO) routinely misleads the Australian public and our political representatives when it asserts that international and bilateral safeguards agreements and processes "ensure" or "provide assurances" that Australian uranium and its by-products such as depleted uranium and plutonium, known collectively as Australian-obligated nuclear materials (AONM), will not contribute to weapons proliferation.

Those agreements and processes certainly attempt to prevent diversion of nuclear materials to weapons programs but they are not and could never be 100% effective.

ASNO and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade routinely offer these false "assurances". The ASNO website illustrates the point: 1. The risk of diversion of AONM is not acknowledged in a document linked from the front page of ASNO's website, "Australia's Uranium Export Policy", <www.dfat.gov.au/security/aus_uran_exp_policy.html>. That document asserts that "Australia's uranium export policy ... provides assurances that exported uranium and its derivatives cannot benefit the development of nuclear weapons or be used in other military programs." Why no acknowledgement of the risk of diversion of AONM for nuclear weapons research and/or production? 2. That document links to another, "Australia's Network of Nuclear Safeguards Agreements", <www.dfat.gov.au/security/nuclear_safeguards.html>, which asserts that: "All of Australia's uranium is exported for exclusively peaceful purposes, and only to countries and parties with which Australia has a bilateral safeguards Agreement. These Agreements ensure that Australia's nuclear exports remain in exclusively peaceful use ..." Why no acknowledgement of the risk of diversion of AONM? 3. That document links to an excerpt from the Australian Safeguards Office Annual Report 1998-99, <www.asno.dfat.gov.au/annual_report_9899/25_years.html>, which asserts that bilateral safeguards agreements "were established to ensure that nuclear items exported from Australia remain in exclusively peaceful use, and in no way enhance or contribute to any military purpose." Why no acknowledgement of the risk of diversion of AONM?

The ASNO website links to the so-called Uranium Information Centre, which also fails to acknowledge the risk of diversion of AONM. We can easily understand why the industry-funded Uranium Information Centre peddles misinformation – it has a commercial interest in doing so. But what is ASNO's excuse? While ASNO is an independent statutory authority, as it should be, it exhibits the tendencies of a captured bureaucracy.

Occasionally, ASNO will concede the indisputable point that there is a risk of diversion of AONM – for example, ASNO Director-General John Carlson (2005) states that "... of course it is possible diversion might occur in the future ...". However, it is far more common for ASNO to provide false "assurances" which strongly imply that there is no risk of diversion.

ASNO should clearly acknowledge on its website that there is a risk of diversion of AONM, and it should remove or modify statements which imply otherwise.

AONM is not fully accounted for

Carlson (2002) says: "All Australian-obligated nuclear material [AONM], including plutonium, is fully accounted for." That is false. There are routine accounting discrepancies – called 'Material Unaccounted For'. MUF refers to discrepancies between the 'book stock' (the expected measured amount) and the 'physical stock' (the actual measured amount) of nuclear materials at a location under safeguards. Such discrepancies are frequent due to the difficulty of precisely measuring amounts of nuclear material.

What Carlson means when he says that all AONM is "fully accounted for" is that ASNO has accepted all the various reasons given for MUF over the years, however fanciful those explanations may or may not be. (ASNO refuses to provide specific data on MUF discrepancies or even aggregate information. Nor has ASNO adequately justified this secrecy.)

Carlson (2005) states: "MUF certainly does not imply that AONM is missing. When ASNO concludes that all AONM is accounted for, this means, inter alia, that we are satisfied about the explanation for any MUF."

In other words, when ASNO says all AONM is fully accounted for, it means all AONM is not fully accounted for.

It is agreed that MUF does not necessarily mean that diversion has occurred – the problem is that we cannot be certain that diversion of MUF has not occurred on each and every occasion when there is a difference between recorded and measured quantities. The inevitability of accounting discrepancies provides an obvious loophole for would-be proliferators. The problem is most acute with facilities processing large volumes of nuclear material, and in particular those processing large volumes of fissile material such as reprocessing plants.

South Korea

ASNO (letter, available on request) insists that South Korea did not use AONM in its long-standing secret nuclear weapons research program from 1979-2000. How can ASNO be sure? According to the letter, one reason is that the South Koreans say so!

We still do not know – and will probably never know – whether AONM was used in the South Korean secret nuclear weapons research program: * We have the assurance of South Korean authorities – but the value of such an assurance is highly questionable in the circumstances. * There could not possibly have been diversion before 1986 since there was no transfer of AONM to South Korea until 1986. * Carlson (2005) states in relation to post-1986 unauthorised activities that: "... the IAEA's investigations showed that the nuclear material used was produced from indigenous sources, Accordingly, ASNO is satisfied that no AONM was involved." But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) appears to base its conclusions in part on "information provided by the ROK", so the argument becomes circular. Moreover, the claim that only indigenous material was used is contested (Kang et al., 2005).

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons

Carlson (2000) states that "... in some of the countries having nuclear weapons, nuclear power remains insignificant or non-existent." Carlson's attempt to absolve civil nuclear programs from the proliferation problem ignores the well-documented use of civil nuclear facilities and materials in weapons programs as well as the important political 'cover' civil programs provide for military programs. It also ignores the more specific links between nuclear power and weapons proliferation.

Of the ten states known to have produced nuclear weapons:* eight have nuclear power reactors.* North Korea has no operating power reactors but an 'Experimental Power Reactor' is believed to have been the source of the fissile material (plutonium) used in the November 2006 nuclear bomb test, and North Korea has power reactors partly constructed under the Joint Framework Agreement.* Israel has no power reactors, though the pretence of an interest in the development of nuclear power helped to justify nuclear transfers to Israel.

Power reactors are certainly used in support of India's nuclear weapons program – this is no longer in dispute since India is refusing to subject numerous power reactors to safeguards under the US/India nuclear agreement.

The US itself is using a power reactor to produce tritium for use in nuclear weapons.

Pakistan may be using power reactor/s in support of its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea's October 2006 weapon test is believed to have used plutonium from an 'Experimental Power Reactor'.

Then Australian Prime Minister John Gorton certainly had military ambitions for the power reactor he pushed to have constructed at Jervis bay in NSW in the late 1960s – he later admitted that the agenda was to produce both plutonium and electricity.

Moreover, nuclear power reactors per sé need not be directly involved in weapons research/production in order for a nuclear power program to provide cover and support for a weapons program. For example, the nuclear weapons programs in South Africa and Pakistan were clearly outgrowths of their power programs although enrichment plants, not power reactors, produced the fissile material for use in weapons. Likewise, nuclear power programs typically involve the construction of research/training reactors which can be and have been used in weapons programs (e.g. India, Israel).

Iraq is another illustration of the potential for nuclear power programs to facilitate nuclear weapons programs even if power reactors are not used to produce fissile material for weapons, or even if power reactors are not built. While Iraq's nuclear research program provided much cover for the weapons program, stated interest in developing nuclear power was also significant. According to Khidhir Hamza (1998), a senior nuclear scientist involved in Iraq's weapons program: "Acquiring nuclear technology within the IAEA safeguards system was the first step in establishing the infrastructure necessary to develop nuclear weapons. In 1973, we decided to acquire a 40-megawatt research reactor, a fuel manufacturing plant, and nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities, all under cover of acquiring the expertise needed to eventually build and operate nuclear power plants and produce and recycle nuclear fuel. Our hidden agenda was to clandestinely develop the expertise and infrastructure needed to produce weapon-grade plutonium."

Carlson's view also sits uncomfortably with the concentration of nuclear power in weapons states – almost 60% of global nuclear power output is in the nuclear weapons states and those power programs involve large numbers of nuclear scientists, technicians, engineers etc., with frequent transfer to and from nuclear weapons programs.

In short, the attempt to distance nuclear power programs from weapons proliferation is disingenuous. While currently-serving politicians and bureaucrats are prone to obfuscation on this point, several retired politicians have recently noted the link between power and weapons:* Former US Vice President Al Gore said in 2006: "For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal ... then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale."* Former US President Bill Clinton said in 2006: "The push to bring back nuclear power as an antidote to global warming is a big problem. If you build more nuclear power plants we have toxic waste at least, bomb-making at worse."* Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating said in 2006: "Any country with a nuclear power program "ipso facto ends up with a nuclear weapons capability".

Carlson (2000) says: "If we look to the history of nuclear weapons development, we can see that those countries with nuclear weapons developed them before they developed nuclear power programs." However, ostensibly civil nuclear programs clearly preceded and facilitated the successful development of nuclear weapons in India, Pakistan, and in the former nuclear weapons state South Africa.

Carlson (2006) states: "I have pointed out on numerous occasions that nuclear power as such is not a proliferation problem – rather the problem is with the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies ..." The claim is false, no matter how many times Carlson makes it:* Power reactors have been used directly in weapons programs.* Power programs have facilitated and provided cover for weapons programs even without direct use of power reactor/s in the weapons program.* And, as will now be discussed, power reactors produce large volumes of weapons-useable plutonium and can be operated on a short irradiation cycle to produce large volumes of weapon-grade plutonium.

Plutonium grades

Statements by Carlson/ASNO about the weapons useability of below-weapon-grade plutonium grossly distort the available scientific evidence and can only be seen as an attempt to promote uranium exports and to absolve governments and uranium mining companies of their culpability in increasing the global stockpile of weapons-useable plutonium. (For a detailed discussion and references to the scientific literature, see <www.foe.org.au/campaigns/anti-nuclear/issues/myth-of-the-peaceful-atom/p....)

In addition to the actual and potential use of below-weapon-grade plutonium in nuclear weapons, power reactors can be operated on a shorter-than-usual irradiation cycle to maximise the proportion of plutonium relative to other, unwanted plutonium isotopes. Thus, power reactors can produce large volumes (hundreds of kilograms per year) of weapon-grade plutonium, and as little as 3-4 kgs of this weapon-grade plutonium is required to build one nuclear weapon.

Carlson (2002) states that Australian-obligated plutonium is not weapon-grade but he fails to note that below-weapon-grade plutonium can be – and has been – used in nuclear weapons. Further, weapon-grade plutonium is produced using Australian uranium – in the normal course of events this weapon-grade plutonium is produced in power reactors and in the normal course of events it is converted to fuel-grade then reactor-grade plutonium in the reactor. It is misleading for Carlson to state that Australian-obligated plutonium is not weapon-grade without noting that below-weapon-grade plutonium can be and has been used in nuclear weapons.

Carlson (2002) says "weapons-grade plutonium is not produced in the normal operation of power reactors" though he knows it is and he knows that below-weapon-grade plutonium has been used in weapons.

Carlson (2002) defends the IAEA's safeguards system and says it provides the "foundation" for preventing misuse of Australian-obligated nuclear materials. The safeguards system was exposed as a farce by the Iraqi regime in the 1980s and early '90s – see the voluminous material on this scandal published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (<www.thebulletin.org>) and by the IAEA (<www.iaea.org>). Since the Iraq debacle, efforts have been made to improve the system, but it still inadequate.

Apart from the nuclear industry and its apologists, including ASNO, there is universal acknowledgement of serious flaws with the safeguards system. Indeed Dr Mohamed El Baradei, the Director General of the IAEA, has stated that the IAEA's basic inspection rights are "fairly limited", that the safeguards system suffers from "vulnerabilities", that efforts to improve the system have been "half-hearted", and that the safeguards system operates on a "shoestring budget". (See statements at <www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/index.html>.)

Compare those acknowledgements from the IAEA Director General with ASNO's false "assurances" that safeguards prevent diversion of AONM.

The IAEA has two roles – promoting the peaceful uses of atomic energy, and preventing weapons proliferation. Since the materials and facilities required for peaceful nuclear research and power programs can be and have been used for nuclear weapons R&D and in some cases full-scale weapons production, the IAEA's two roles can be described as: trying to prevent weapons proliferation while actively promoting the expanded use of materials and facilities which can in many cases be used for nuclear weapons research and/or production. The contradiction is obvious notwithstanding Carlson's (2005) comments about the two roles being "complementary" rather than "inconsistent". By Carlson's logic, drug-running operations would neatly complement efforts to stem the trade in illicit drugs.

Membership of the Board of Governors of the IAEA is weighted in favour of countries with significant nuclear programs. Carlson (2005) fails to see the problem arising from that weighting. The problem is that countries with significant nuclear programs may have reasons, e.g. commercial reasons, to downplay the proliferation risks associated with civil nuclear programs. South Australian Premier Mike Rann's observation in a 1982 paper is pertinent: "Again and again, it has been demonstrated here and overseas that when problems over safeguards prove difficult, commercial considerations will come first."

Carlson (1998) makes the absurd claim that: "One of the features of Australian policy ... is very careful selection of our treaty partners. We have concluded bilateral arrangements only with countries whose credentials are impeccable in this area."

Carlson's claim is demonstrably false. Australia has uranium export agreements with nuclear weapons states (most or all of which are failing to fulfil their NPT disarmament obligations), states with a history of covert nuclear weapons research based on their 'civil' nuclear programs, states blocking progress on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and states blocking progress on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.

To give some examples:

1. The US is breaching its NPT disarmament commitments in many ways: refusing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; making a mockery of the proposed Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty by blocking any inspection or verification measures; engaging in research on new generations of nuclear weapons; indicating that it might begin nuclear weapons testing again; resuming the production of tritium for use in nuclear weapons and using a 'civil' power reactor to produce the tritium; acknowledging in its 2002 Nuclear Posture Review that it intends to maintain its nuclear arsenal "forever"; embarking on nuclear co-operation with India (a non-NPT state); threatening first-use nuclear strikes; and developing a nuclear hit-list of seven states, all of them NPT member states except North Korea, and five of them non-nuclear weapons states.

The disgraceful role of the US, and its manifold breaches of its NPT obligations, have been ignored by the Australian government. Successive Australian governments have claimed that the US is in compliance with its NPT obligations because of the reduction in the number of nuclear weapons. But even that solitary achievement is largely a function of creative accounting "worthy of Enron" according to the US Natural Resources Defense Council. Moreover, the numbers argument can be misleading. Due to technical enhancement, the smaller stockpile of US nuclear weapons actually has an increased destructive power.

2. France and the UK are also customers of Australian uranium and, like the US, neither country has the slightest intention of fulfilling its NPT disarmament obligations. The UK government is strongly advocating replacement of its Trident nuclear system. In January 2006, French President Jacques Chirac declared that French nuclear weapons would be used in fighting terrorism, increasing rather than decreasing the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines.

3. The federal government has negotiated a bilateral treaty with China to permit uranium sales. China is a nuclear weapons state with no intention of fulfilling its NPT disarmament obligations, and it refuses to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Further, the Chinese state is undemocratic and repressive. It is difficult to imagine a nuclear industry worker in China publicly raising safety, security or proliferation concerns without reprisal. It is a closed, secretive state – which makes safeguarding AONM all the more difficult. China is included in the US's Nuclear Posture Review hit-list because of the "ongoing modernization of its nuclear and non nuclear forces" and its "still developing strategic objectives".

4. Japan, a major customer of Australian uranium, has developed a nuclear 'threshold' or 'breakout' capability – it could produce nuclear weapons within months of a decision to do so, relying heavily on facilities, materials and expertise from its civil nuclear program. An obvious source of fissile material for a weapons program in Japan would be its stockpile of plutonium – including Australian-obligated plutonium. In April 2002, the then leader of Japan's Liberal Party, Ichiro Ozawa, said Japan should consider building nuclear weapons to counter China and suggested a source of fissile material: "It would be so easy for us to produce nuclear warheads; we have plutonium at nuclear power plants in Japan, enough to make several thousand such warheads."

Japan's plutonium policy is anything but impeccable. It is irresponsible. Diplomatic cables in 1993 and 1994 from US Ambassadors in Tokyo describe Japan's accumulation of plutonium as "massive" and questioned the rationale for the stockpiling of so much plutonium since it appeared to be economically unjustified. A March 1993 diplomatic cable from US Ambassador Armacost in Tokyo to Secretary of State Warren Christopher, obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, posed these questions: "Can Japan expect that if it embarks on a massive plutonium recycling program that Korea and other nations would not press ahead with reprocessing programs? Would not the perception of Japan's being awash in plutonium and possessing leading edge rocket technology create anxiety in the region?" (Greenpeace, 1999.)

Yet successive Australian governments have allowed Japan to stockpile Australian-obligated plutonium. Not once has a reprocessing request from Japan been refused.

5. South Korea is another major customer of Australian uranium with less than impeccable credentials. In 2004, South Korea disclosed information about a range of activities which violated its NPT commitments – uranium enrichment from 1979-81, the separation of small quantities of plutonium in 1982, uranium enrichment experiments in 2000, and the production of depleted uranium munitions from 1983-1987.

Nuclear weapons states

Carlson (2005) states that it is it is "not plausible" that a non nuclear weapons state would seek nuclear weapons because the nuclear weapons states are not meeting their NPT commitments. Why not? According to IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed El Baradei (2005): "[W]e must show the world that our commitment to nuclear disarmament is firm. As long as some countries place strategic reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, other countries will emulate them. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking otherwise."

Likewise, El Baradei (2004) noted that: ''There are some who have continued to dangle a cigarette from their mouth and tell everybody else not to smoke.''

So by the logic of no less an authority than Dr. Mohamed El Baradei – Nobel Peace Prize winner and IAEA Director General – Carlson is deluding himself.

Carlson's illogical and incomprehensible statement is out of step not only with the IAEA Director General but also with the expert Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nobel Laureats, Cold War warriors such as Henry Kissinger and countless experts in non-proliferation.

Declared and undeclared facilities

Carlson (2006) stresses the use of undeclared facilities in Iraq's nuclear weapons program from the 1970s to 1991:

"It is well known that discovery of the undeclared Iraq program after the first Gulf War showed inadequacies in “traditional” IAEA safeguards, especially as regards possible undeclared nuclear activities. This is what prompted the program to strengthen safeguards, of which the Additional Protocol is a part.

"It is also well known that the IAEA's ability to detect undeclared nuclear activities requires substantial further development, this is the most serious challenge to safeguards – also discussed at length in my annual reports. Australian uranium is exported for declared nuclear programs under IAEA safeguards – the problem of detecting undeclared activities does not show that safeguards on declared activities are inadequate." (emphasis in original)

However there is abundant evidence of safeguarded facilities being used in the nuclear weapons program in Iraq (Green, 2002).

For example, the safeguarded, highly-enriched uranium (HEU) fuelled IRT research reactor was frequently used in the Iraqi weapons program:

1. A fuel element from the IRT reactor was used for a plutonium extraction experiment.

2. On three other occasions, fuel elements were fabricated from undeclared uranium dioxide in an Experimental Reactor Fuel Fabrication Laboratory, they were secretly irradiated in the IRT reactor and then chemically processed in an unsafeguarded Radiochemical Laboratory containing hot cells.

3. The reactor was used to make polonium-210 for neutron initiator research, using bismuth targets.

4. The reactor was used to produce small quantities of plutonium-238, which could have been used for neutron initiator research instead of short lived polonium-210.

5. The reactor could potentially have produced sufficient plutonium for one weapon over a period of several years using fuel and/or a uranium blanket and/or uranium targets; this risk, albeit small, was increased by the fact that IAEA inspections of the reactor were infrequent because of the low risk status of the reactor.

6. HEU fuel for the IRT reactor, and the 0.5 MW(th) Tammuz-II reactor, was diverted during Iraq's 1990-1991 'crash program'.

7. 'Dirty' radiation bombs were produced and three test bombs were exploded in Iraq in 1987, using materials irradiated in the IRT and/or Tammuz II research reactors (the more powerful IRT reactor was the better suited of the two reactors for the purpose).

Not once did the IAEA detect these proscribed uses of the 'safeguarded' IRT reactor.

The US military clearly believed the IRT and Tammuz II reactors represented a proliferation threat and bombed them in 1991.

The IAEA (1997, p.53) states that the IRT reactor was of "very limited usefulness as a plutonium production reactor" but made a "useful" contribution to the nuclear weapons research and development program.

Iraq's accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty was a net positive for its nuclear weapons program. Safeguards did little to thwart the program, and NPT accession facilitated technology transfer. IAEA safeguards inspector Roger Richter resigned in 1981, having written to the US State Department the year before stating: 'The most disturbing implication of the Iraqi nuclear program is that the NPT agreement has had the effect of assisting Iraq in acquiring the nuclear technology and nuclear material for its program by absolving the cooperating nations of their moral responsibility by shifting it to the IAEA. These cooperating nations have thwarted concerted international criticism of their actions by pointing to Iraq's signing of NPT, while turning away from the numerous, obvious and compelling evidence which leads to the conclusion that Iraq is embarked on a nuclear weapons program." (Quoted in MacLachlan and Ryan (1991); see also Nucleonics Week, June 25, 1981, p.3.)

Conclusion

ASNO has a track record of making false and misleading statements. Numerous other examples could be provided in addition to those included in this paper. Since ASNO has proven itself unwilling to redress this problem, the Commonwealth government should hold ASNO to account.